


When the War is Won

by centreoftheselights



Category: Once Upon A Time (In Space) (Album), The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Character Study, Clones, F/F, Femslash February 2016, Immortality, Relationship Negotiation, Super Soldiers, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-27
Updated: 2016-02-27
Packaged: 2018-05-23 13:03:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6117304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/centreoftheselights/pseuds/centreoftheselights
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The final battle against King Cole goes a little differently, and leaves a lot of questions to be answered.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When the War is Won

**Author's Note:**

> Part of my [Femslash February prompt fills](http://centrumlumina.tumblr.com/post/138495106946/femslash-february-prompts)! Prompt: Everyone Lives AU.
> 
> Prompted by scienceandstarlight.
> 
> This is based on the album [Once Upon a Time in Space](https://themechanisms.bandcamp.com/album/once-upon-a-time-in-space) by The Mechanisms. The Mechanisms are a band of bloodthirsty immortal space pirates who specialise in sci-fi folk song retellings of mythology, and Once Upon A Time in Space is the tale of Snow White's uprising against the vicious, tyrannical King Cole. If you have not listened to this album, this fic will make little sense; if the last sentence didn't convince you to listen, this fic wasn't for you in the first place.

It was all Marius's fault.

There was a perfectly good civilisation-toppling battle going on on the planet's surface, but Marius was the one who dragged them all into the tunnels beneath the planet – something about getting to the heart of the conflict? And once Marius had suggested it, the Briar Rose agreed, and then Nastya made that face, and suddenly they were all going, because no-one wanted to spend the next couple of millennia living on a spaceship that was pissed at them.

So they went underground, followed the sound of explosions, and stumbled into a very different kind of civilisation-ending battle.

The scene in King Cole's chambers was bloody and brutal. Despite being vastly outnumbered, the Three Little Pigs were making short work of the surviving rebel forces, and everywhere you looked there was gore and rending of flesh and the moans of the dying. In the midst of it all, King Cole sat upon his giant throne, laughing a high and vicious laugh at the chaos that surrounded him.

It looked like a damn good time.

The Mechanisms leapt into the fray. Jonny made a reckless beeline for the maniacal king, and was quickly cut down. Raphaella began liberally spraying the troops on both sides with a foul-smelling and faintly caustic liquid she had loaded into a water gun. Gunpowder Tim lobbed a grenade, which exploded with enough force to make the room shake.

The Briar Rose, in her shining black armour, set upon the Three Little Pigs with vicious fury. The few surviving rebels, their ranks unexpectedly swelled, began to surge forward -

Then fate intervened.

Cinders caught sight of Rose's imprisonment, and with a single well-placed shot, shattered the glass of her container. Rose, blinking and confused, her brilliant white dress crumbling away in contact with the air, fell to her knees – then looked up, just as Snow, leading the second charge of her troops, was skewered clean through by one of the Three Little Pigs.

The sister's eyes met, for just a moment. Then the blade was wrenched loose and Snow slid, lifeless, to the floor, her face more peaceful than it had been for decades.

Rose's fury was unstoppable. She let out a roar of anguish, snatched up a blade from a fallen warrior, and laid into the Three Little Pigs with all the rage of her decades of captivity. With Briar Rose at her side, white dress swirling and black armour glinting, they tore the Pigs apart, until all three of them were reduced to nothing but scrap metal and blood.

It wasn't until the last of the Pigs was defeated that Rose finally turned to survey the room, and laid eyes on Cinders.

For a few beautiful seconds, it seemed as though everything had fallen still, and the chaos around them gave way. The two rushed to embrace one another, the bloodstains which covered them forgotten in the sheer joy of their reunion. They thought nothing of the corpses which littered the floor, of Briar Rose staring on dumbstruck, or of the mad king raising his blaster -

Until King Cole fired.

Rose stumbled forward, collapsing in Cinders arms. At first, she didn't understand what was happening. It was only when she felt the warmth of fresh blood spreading across her stomach as it seeped out of her true love that Cinders finally understood.

She pressed a kiss to her love's lifeless lips and, without a single tear, she walked towards the king. All around them were the dead and the dying – and Briar Rose, still frozen, unable to react to what she was seeing.

“So...” the king said, in his slow, mocking voice. “It comes to this. But do you really have the guts to -”

He never had a chance to finish his sentence. Cinders lashed out at him, faster and stronger than should have been possible, and a deafening crack echoed around the room. The ivory throne had split. The king slumped forward, gurgling his last, bloody breaths, as his lungs spilled out of his chest, spraying his killer with gore.

Cinders wrenched her hand free and looked down, dispassionate, on the pathetically struggling, dying king. Then she turned away.

At last, Briar Rose took a step forward, readied herself to speak.

“Cinders?”

That was when Rose sat up from the floor, coughing.

“My love? What happened?”

 

After that, things got very confusing very quickly.

 

“Rose?”

“Cinders!”

“Rose!”

“Rose?”

“Snow!”

“Rose!”

“Cinders?”

“Snow.”

“RAPHAELLA!”

 

“There's nothing wrong with untested chemical weapons!” Raphaella complained.

“Yeah,” said Jonny. “But it wasn't actually a weapon, was it? It was, in fact, the opposite of a weapon.”

“I didn't know that for certain!”

“You accidentally created an elixir of eternal life?” Ashes asked.

“Um… yes?”

“So everyone here is now unkillable?” Drumbot Brian clarified.

“Well – I might need to run a few more experiments – but...”

Nastya groaned and put her head in her hands.

“We are not having them all aboard the Aurora,” she declared. “I do not care how immortal they are.”

 

Slowly, the newly-immortal rebels began to come to.

All twenty-three of the warriors who had reached the throne room had been affected by Raphaella's experiment, and as they resurrected one by one, they began to regroup. The king, still coughing and wheezing through his ruptured windpipe long after the breath should have left him, was guarded by a hulking brute of a man and his companion, a young woman who had calmly snapped his neck back into place after waking from her own bullet wound. Across the room, a young woman whose face was covered with a heavy crimson hood was fashioning shackles for the unmoving bodies of the Three Little Pigs.

And in the midst of it all, untouched, stood a circle of four women with a great deal to discuss.

 

The Briar Rose had rushed to Snow's side the moment she stirred, and she had then stood awkwardly by while Rose and Snow were reunited. They embraced, but only briefly, and then Rose drew back to Cinders' side, twining their hands together.

The Briar Rose was torn. She had dreamed about this moment for years – dreamed about once more being with her sister, holding her wife close – but now it was here, and the moment wasn't for her. She wasn't the true Rose, and all she could do was watch while events played out.

Her heart ached to speak, reveal herself, beg for acceptance no matter the price. Her mind told her to walk away, to disappear back into the lonely shadows in which she had spent her entire existence and leave the ones she loved to their happy ending without her. And somewhere in between the two she was stuck, knowing she should go but unable to tear herself away.

Then Snow turned to her.

“And who's this?” she asked, her hand hovering over the blaster at her belt.

“She came with the strangers,” Cinders answered.

“But we don't know her?” Snow set her jaw, and Rose too looked wary. “Who are you? Show your face!”

Rose made a snap decision.

In one smooth motion, she pulled off her helmet. Rose's mouth opened in a soft gasp of astonishment. They were like flawed reflections – the Briar Rose lacking in Rose's distinctive scars, and her hair long and braided about her head where Rose's was cropped short, but she was still more like Rose than even her twin.

In less than a second, Snow's blaster was levelled at her head.

“It's a fucking Rosie,” she spat.

The Briar Rose remained calm. “I'm not a Rose Red.”

“Yeah right.”

“Snow, she fought by my side -” Rose began, but Snow didn't even look at her.

“They'll do anything they're told,” she snarled. “The question is, who's doing the telling.”

“No-one,” the Briar Rose answered. “I can think for myself.”

Snow let out a bark of laughter.

“There's not a Rose Red in the galaxy that can -”

The Briar Rose reached out, faster than Snow's eyes could follow, and snatched the weapon from her hand. By the time anyone could react, she already had her hands behind her head in surrender – just as well, as half a dozen weapons were pointed her way, the first of them being Rose's own.

“I'm _not_ a Rose Red,” the Briar Rose repeated loudly. “I'm the other one.”

Across the room, the woman in the red hood swore.

“The prototype,” Snow said.

“What the fuck is going on?” demanded Rose.

The Briar Rose slowly handed Snow's blaster back to her, hilt first.

“You had better be the one to explain,” she said to Snow. “I was asleep for most of it.”

 

Snow's explanation was brief and to the point. She had changed a lot from the eager, eloquent speech-maker of Rose's memories. She was scarred, yes, but more than that she seemed tired. Her face had forgotten how to hold a smile.

“Last we heard, she was wired into the planet's defence system,” Snow concluded.

The Briar Rose nodded to the Mechanisms in the corner.

“They broke me out,” she said. “Don't ask me why, I think it was just for the hell of it. They wanted to stick around for the end of the war.”

“And you?” Cinders asked. It was the first time she had looked the Briar Rose in the eye, and the Rose felt as though something vital inside of her had been shredded so fine it could never be put back together.

“I wanted to see the king dead,” she answered with a scowl, but as she looked at Cinders she felt her expression soften. “I wanted to see what happened, with my own eyes.”

“And now you have,” Red said.

The Briar Rose met her double's gaze with a wary respect. Rose knew she had some of her memories. She was certain they each knew what the other was thinking, were both holding their breath for her next words.

“Yes, I have,” she said. “And it's time for me to leave.”

She knew she had to go now, or else she never would. She was the greatest warrior in a thousand systems. She would walk away for the good of all of them, even if every step tore into her like a knife.

“General White.” She nodded to Snow – no, not Snow, never Snow. That was a name only her sister could call her.

“Rose.” She shook her other self's hand. “Take care of yourself.”

“I'll try my best,” Rose answered, with a wry smile.

Finally, she turned to Cinders – and though she knew she shouldn't, that it would only make her pain greater, she couldn't help but take her love in her arms one last time.

For a moment, Cinders was tense, but then she held Briar Rose tight.

“Thank you,” she whispered, “for bringing her back to me.”

“Look after her,” the Briar Rose whispered back. “And be happy, Ella.”

She let go, and turned her head away, ready to leave.

Then Cinders whispered behind her: “What did you say?”

The Briar Rose turned back. Cinders' face was full of confusion and wonder.

“Only one person knows that name,” Cinders said, slowly. “How much do you remember about me?”

A thousand lies sprang to the Briar Rose's lips – nothing, hardly anything, as if we'd met only once in a dream -

“All of it.”

Cinders frowned, and Rose's brow furrowed. Even Snow looked concerned.

“Prove i-” Rose began.

“The only one I would ever go to peace for,” the Briar Rose said without hesitation, her eyes never leaving Cinders'. It was a line from the wedding vows she had never had a chance to say.

Cinders reached out, and took the Briar Rose's hand, and the Rose felt her heart beginning to rise in a way she knew she could never recover from.

“You know,” Cinders said slowly. “I've only ever loved one woman… and she's the only one who knows my true name.”

Cinders turned to Rose, the obvious question unspoken.

“Well.” Rose shrugged. “I don't see why we couldn't.”

She looked the Briar Rose up and down, then smirked at her in a way that brought to mind the memory of some particularly vivid fantasies.

The Briar Rose reached out and took Rose's hand in her other one, so that the three of them stood in a circle. She was smiling harder than she could remember ever smiling before. All at once, a new future was opening up before her, as bright and glittering as the stars.

“This is very sweet and everything, but can we get back to the decade-long war we're still fighting?”

The three of them broke apart their circle and turned to Snow.

“We're not fighting it any more, we won,” Rose pointed out.

“The king isn't dead,” Snow said with a dangerous edge to her voice. “In fact, he is now immortal, and therefore incredibly fucking easy to rally around. We need to deal with him, establish a stable democratic government, and build up a power base, stat. Ideas?”

Rose frowned. “I- I'm not going to war any more. Not even for you.”

Snow sighed. “Fine. How about you?”

She was looking at the Briar Rose. The Rose blinked for a moment, surprised to be asked, and then nodded.

“Yeah,” she said. “I've got some fight left in me.”

Then an idea occurred that brought a dark glint to her eye.

“And I've got an idea for what to do with the king,” she said. “Provided you've got a decent hacker – and some way to keep him asleep.”

Snow cracked a smile which showed her teeth.

“I like the way you think,” she said. “I look forward to working with you, R- Uh, whatever your name is.”

Rose frowned. “Rose?”

But the Briar Rose shook her head. “I need a new name.”

“What did they call you?” Cinders asked.

“The Prototype, The Experiment… Briar.” She scowled. “No, nothing they gave me. Something else.”

She glanced over to the Mechanisms, still arguing in the corner. Several of the group were visibly injured, which after a few days with them, didn't surprise her. Finally, a name she liked came to mind.

She smiled.

“How about… Aurora?”


End file.
